PredictionArticle

The near-term future is agents working through purpose-built software.

Codex cannot create a finished CAD file on its own. But Codex operating CLO can produce exactly what Yana needs. SaaS is not disappearing; it is gaining a new kind of user. ✦ AI generated

Yana Welinder · Lenny's Newsletter · 2026-08-17 · original ↗

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The near-term future is agents working through purpose-built software. Codex cannot create a finished CAD file on its own. But Codex operating CLO can produce exactly what Yana needs. That same pattern appears throughout her workflow: the AI serves as the orchestration layer, while specialized software handles the execution. SaaS is not disappearing; it is gaining a new kind of user.

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▦ CLO ✳ Codex

Around this claim

Mechanism · 1

The prompt is the spec, and the spec is everything.Yana Welinder · Lenny's Newsletter · conf 65%

Evidence · 1

AI agents can make specialized software accessible without years of training.Yana Welinder · Lenny's Newsletter · conf 80%

Context · 1

For designers, following the vision matters more than producing something impressive.Yana Welinder · Lenny's Newsletter · conf 70%

This moment responds to

supports → Domain-specific AI agents, like Codex for coding, already work well because coding is testable and RL-friendly, and this pattern will likely extend to other quantitative knowledge work before general-purpose agents that can handle any task become viable.Nick Turley · BG2 Pod provides context → It's okay to mourn the craft of hand-writing code as AI takes over programming, but programmers should see themselves as builders whose broader craft—deciding what to build and how it should feel—won't be replaced.Peter Steinberger · Lex Fridman